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Description

This research explores the intersection of medieval literature and contemporary visual art, focusing specifically on Sandow Birk’s reinterpretation of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. By examining Birk’s illustrated adaptations of Inferno and Purgatorio, this paper analyzes how he translates and visually reimagines Dante’s moral and spiritual journey as a modern critique of California’s social crises, particularly those affecting unhoused populations. It investigates Birk’s recontextualization of Dante’s allegory in relation to the urban decay of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ultimately, this study aims to reveal how Birk’s visual narrative bridges historical understandings of religious and social issues with contemporary experiences of human suffering in the sociocultural landscape of the twenty-first century

Publisher Location

Las Vegas (Nev.)

Publication Date

Fall 11-21-2025

Publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Keywords

Sandow Birk; Hell; Robert Rauschenberg; Divine Comedy; Political

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities

File Format

PDF

File Size

1300 KB

Permissions

Google Drive\Institutional Repository\OUR_OfficeOfUGResearch\Symposia\2025 Fall Symposium

Comments

Mentor: Kristen Keach

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

From Dante’s Inferno to California: Visualizing the Marginalized in Sandow Birk’s Social Critique


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